President
Chief Executive Officer
Kurt Newman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Children's National Hospital, is a surgeon and recognized leader in pediatric health nationally and in Washington, D.C.
Since becoming CEO in 2011, he has fostered a culture of patient-centered care and championed innovations in research, operations and clinical care. He has forged productive partnerships with other health systems in the region, with government and community entities and with industry at the local, national and global level. He is also a strong advocate for expanding mental health access for kids and has led two national forums on this issue.
Dr. Newman joined Children’s National as a surgical fellow in 1984 and became Surgeon-in-Chief and Senior Vice President for the Joseph E. Robert, Jr., Center for Surgical Care in 2003. He was instrumental in developing the vision for the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National, inspired by the bold vision of making surgery for children minimally invasive and pain-free. When the Institute was created in 2009 through a transformational $150 million gift, Dr. Newman served as founding Vice President.
Dr. Newman serves on several boards, including, but not limited to, the board of the Economic Club of Washington, Greater Washington Board of Trade, Federal City Council, D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Fight for Children, YMCA Camp Sea Gull/Seafarer and Corus International. Previously, he served on the Board of Commissioners of The Joint Commission, the Board of Governors of the American Pediatric Surgical Association, and as chair of the Surgery Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He is also a past chair of the Board of Directors for the District of Columbia Hospital Association and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) Board of Trustees. He now serves as the chair of the Governance Committee for CHA.
Dr. Newman is a professor of surgery and pediatrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his medical education at Duke University. He completed his surgical residency at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and also served as the Arthur Tracy Cabot Fellow at Harvard Medical School.
In 2017, Dr. Newman’s medical memoir, Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine, debuted as an Amazon bestseller in pediatrics and earned national attention and critical praise in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post and Harvard Business Review. One-hundred percent of the proceeds from his book go to pediatric research.
In 2021, Dr. Newman received the CEO of the Year award from the Washington Business Journal. It's the publication's highest honor.